We need an amendment to the Constitution forcing an election in the event a VP takes over from a POTUS to prevent the Biden/Harris gambit from ever being used again.
You bring up an interesting point.
When William Henry Harrison died in 1841 after only 30 days in office, there was a brief constitutional crisis. Vice President John Tyler, a disaffected Democrat who had joined the Whigs, declared that he now was entitled to a complete four year term, and the dates of elections and inaugurations would have to be slipped by a month. Keep in mind that in 1841 we still hadn’t standardized our federal elections.
Whig Party leader Sen. Henry Clay of Kentucky declared that Tyler was only acting president until the Electoral College chosen in the 1840 election could choose another president and vice president. Clay, of course, knew that he would be the Electoral College’s choice. The compromise was that Tyler would finish Harrison’s term.
Clay would bitterly regret his decision. Tyler began governing as a Democrat, not a Whig. I suggest Merrill Peterson’s magisterial The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay and Calhoun for the story of the war that broke out between Clay and Tyler. That disagreement led to a disastrous 1842 congressional election performance due to the fact that the Whigs had proved that they were not yet ready for prime time.
The Clay/Frelinghuysen ticket would lose to the Polk/Dallas ticket in 1844 due to stuffed ballot boxes in New York City and New Orleans.
In 1961 Jack Kennedy asked the National Security Council to war-game what would happen if the Soviets nuked Washington and decapitated the federal government.
The NSC lawyers reported that the House could only be reconstituted by special elections. Due to the 17th Amendment, the Senate could be reconstituted mostly by state governors. But the presidency and vice presidency could only be filled by the Electoral College chosen in the previous presidential election.
That’s where we are today.
No we need a lifetime limit of 3 terms in the house and 2 in the Senate, return of State legislatures appointing senators, and resolution of the income tax.